Selena
Feminine · Greek roots · “moon”
Selena is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 59,887 girls against 57 boys since 1880.
Selena is the Latin form of Selene, the Greek goddess of the moon, and it has kept that lunar meaning intact through every language it has passed into. Three even syllables, a soft landing on the final -a, and a spelling that reads correctly at first sight in both English and Spanish. It has been on record in the United States continuously for generations, without ever becoming a name you hear in every room.
How old is the name Selena?
Selena was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Selena alive today was born around 1998, making them about 27 years old. About 57,000 people named Selena are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Selena most popular?
Selena peaked in 1995, reaching #91 nationally. Today it ranks #268, 177 places below that high. See the whole 1995 chart.
Selena appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Selēnē (Greek) to Selena
The story of Selena
The oldest layer is Greek: Selene, goddess of the moon, sister of the sun god Helios in the old mythology and the subject of one of the Homeric Hymns. Latin writers wrote her name as Selena, and that Latin spelling is the one that traveled into modern European languages. English took a variant, Selina, into regular use from around the seventeenth century, while Selena held on in its Latinate form and became widely used in Spanish-speaking communities, where the vowels fall naturally. In the United States its strongest footing has long been in California, Texas and Florida — the shape of a name carried by both English and Spanish speakers at once.
Meaning
moon
From Greek selēnē, 'moon', the name of the moon goddess Selene; Selena is the Latinized spelling of that name.
How the name formed
- SelēnēGreek
- SelenaLatin
- Selina
- Selena
Related forms: Selene · Selina · Selene · Séléné · Селена (Selena) · Selena
Pronouncing Selena
suh-LEE-nuh
English speakers almost always say suh-LEE-nuh. In Spanish the same spelling is seh-LEH-nah, with a clearer first vowel and a shorter stressed one; bilingual families often use both without difficulty.
Nicknames for Selena
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
- 1995 — America honors Tejano star Selena
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 19953,825 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #91reached in 1995
- Change vs 2022
- −8.6%1,170 in 2025, from 1,280
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Selena in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Selene in Greek — same name
- Selina in English — spelling variant
- Selene in Italian — same name
- Séléné in French — related form
- Селена (Selena) in Russian — transliteration
- Selena in Polish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Selenas among us
people named Selena are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 1,374 born in 2025 was named Selena
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Jodi test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Selena's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jodi climbed just as high around 1974, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jodi's path sketches the road Selena is walking now.
Selena peaked long ago yet still holds steady — names that survive their own wave usually settle into quiet, durable classics.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Selena is headed
Selena should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Selena beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Selena in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled and easy to state: moon, straight from the Greek goddess Selene.
- Reads and pronounces cleanly in both English and Spanish, with no respelling needed to cross between them.
- Comes with Lena already attached — a short form that is itself a full name with centuries of use.
- On the US record continuously for well over a century, so it has never needed a comeback.
- Selina, Celina and Salina all exist as separate names, so expect to spell it aloud fairly often — and to see it written back the wrong way in email.
- For many people the name is closely tied to a celebrated Tejano singer, and to a well-known American pop performer. That association is affectionate, but it arrives before the child does.
- The English and Spanish pronunciations differ in their vowels. In a bilingual setting that is simply flexibility; in a monolingual one it can mean gently correcting people.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Selena to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Selena
Feminine · Greek roots · #268 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Selenas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 57,000 people named Selena are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Selena in 2025?
- Selena ranks #268 among US girl names in 2025, with 1,170 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Selena?
- About 1 in every 1,374 US girls born in 2025 was named Selena — 1,170 in all.
- Will my child share the name Selena with classmates?
- Selena will almost certainly be the only one in school.
- What explains the spikes and dips on Selena's chart?
- Selena climbed after 1995 — America honors Tejano star Selena.
Ranked beside Selena
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Arleth#269 · Elaina#267 · Evie#270 · Nayeli#270 · Aspen#266 · Talia#265 · Khloe#272 · Ophelia#264
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Selena? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Selena and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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